About Me

I am an antique textile dealer and also make things from a variety of my textiles,usually things that are distressed and can be recycled to extend their life and enjoy their beauty or workmanship.
I buy antique quilts exstensively ,log cabin pattern is my favourite. "Paisley" shawls are another passion of mine,even the damaged ones find a good home with me! love the colours, so rich.
I have a soft spot for anything in wool, must be my Northern roots and upbringing,Blankets, sweaters, tweeds and felts , the more rustic the better.
Lizzy and I share a love of French linen and textiles and have a joint collection , " Franglais " which we source together on our travels, bedlinens , soft furnishings , sheets for curtains , the more rustic the better we like them Handwoven linens and hemps from the 19th cent. wonderful shirts and chemises.

Saturday, 12 January 2013

" The Big Trip "

Wet Saturday afternoon, what better time to start planning our Franglais " Big Trip "
This year we are heading for the " L'amour du fil " at Nantes where we will spend three days at the Stitchcraft show. There are some special events on there to do with the " dear Jane " quilt , ask Lizzie! We have some other friends coming under their own steam to join us at the hotel and show. We all met up in Alsace last year and that was fun.
After that Lizzie and I head south via La Rochelle , I have stayed in the Vendee a lot so look forward to showing it to Lizzie.
We then head east to Bergerac where we will explore the Bastide towns and have promised ourselves a visit to the cave drawings which regretfully we did not have time for on our trip back from Provence and the Pyrenees region 2011.
We are looking forward to meeting up with our lovely friends Leslie and Tony who we visit in Bergerac.

We are looking forward to seeing more of Perigord we loved what we saw on our last visit , so I surrounded by maps and brochures and once more Google Earth has come into it's own, we don't stick to the big roads that they suggest but it gives me an idea of distances between places when planning routes so we have time to " stop and stare ".
It is later in April but takes time ,so nice to get a start and transport myself away from all this miserable wet.
Of course the trip would not be complete without dropping in on Tick and Nick en route to Nantes for a night and a few days of holiday with them at the end, a haven of calm before having to join the real world again and get back to work